


Two Minutes To Midnight

by ruffaled



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canonical Character Death, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt, Hurt Tony Stark, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 06:24:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20304907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruffaled/pseuds/ruffaled
Summary: Tony's never been in the habit of looking before leaping. But, standing on the edge between life and death, at the end of where it all began and facing the monster that's lurked in closet all these years, he takes a moment to reflect. And then gets the job done.





	Two Minutes To Midnight

His eyes light up like a thousand suns as time crawls to a standstill. The slowing heartbeats echo in his ears, laboured, gasping breaths sussarate in the deafening silence, and the countdown to the end begins. 

The slow, sure, destruction of his body is underway. Pain spreads like wildfire; it burns out the nerve endings and fades into an icy numbness. Tony’s lips feel dry, and the edges of his vision blacken. His thoughts scatter a million ways: _Save the world_. _I’m trying_. _Try harder_. _I’m going to die_. _I don’t want to die_. _You have to_. _There’s no other way, we’re in the endgame now_. _Nat’s gone_. _You couldn’t save her._ _Protect Pepper_. _I love Pepper_. _Miss Morgan_. _Love you 3,000_. _Morguna_. _My sweet Morguna_. _Love you_. _3,000_. 

Tony draws in a long breath and time restarts. The battle rages on; the smell of burnt plasma hangs thick in the air, the clash of metal-on-metal shake the ground, threatening to sink what’s left of the Compound deep into the planet’s core. Fallen fighters groan in pain. Broken bodies struggle to breathe through the tightness in their throats; the air _just_ won’t go in, dying lungs turned to lead. 

There’s fear in Thanos’ eyes as he stares at the empty gauntlet in his hand. At that moment, he understands he’s lost the war —all the meticulous planning, perfected over decades, rewriting every equation over and over again to shape the universe in his image, but in the end, it’s a single, inconsequential variable that unravels the entire plan. 

It reminds Tony of Ultron; designed to be this world’s salvation, Tony had checked, and rechecked, every equation, every variable, every line of code he had written. The mind stone’s mere touch mutated Ultron into a grotesque mockery of what he was meant to be, and its horrific aftermath trailed Tony like a phantom shadow everywhere he went. 

The mind stone mocks Tony about the price he needs to pay to win—it’s bigger than writing a cheque for a Monet or a Degas at an art gallery opening or adding extra zeroes to outbid a government contract. His wealth cannot save the universe, not this time; wielding the stones isn’t enough, there’s a final, _fatal_ step ahead and without it, the job remains unfinished. No one gets to go home. 

His chest rises and falls with rapid breaths. He’s nearing the end—his skin burns from the stones’ raw, untamed energy, the cells underneath disintegrate, leaving the melting blood vessels in a heap of red mess and the insides of his mouth, tasting like death. Organs begin to shut down, the sudden drop in blood pressure accelerates the decline; it leaves him lightheaded and nauseous. The armour holds him together, but it feels like deadweight that threatens to topple him over.

Tony glowers at Thanos, defiant till the end. Sparing his life on Titan had been a mistake and Tony wants Thanos to know that. _Cursed with all the knowledge in the universe and you couldn’t even see what was right before you. That was the beginning of your end, buddy. _Tony wills his adversary to understand. 

It’s now or never. They have arrived at the event horizon, in the narrow chasm between life and death. _I am the merchant of death, and I sentence every one of you to die_. The stones sing in his ears. 

“And…_I…_am…Iron Man.”

He snaps his fingers and the world goes white. 

It’s done. Eleven years later, the monster in his closet is _finally _defeated. The wormhole, the Leviathans lurking between the black depths of space, the nightmares, Ultron, the suffocating loss on Titan, being adrift in space, losing hope, then, rebuilding hope on second chances, living in a constant state of terror that everything he’s found, everything he’s built can be taken away from him in the blink of an eye—but, it’s all over now. 

They’ve won and he can finally rest.

***

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. You can find me on Tumblr at [@tonywelost](http://tonywelost.tumblr.com).


End file.
